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Hercules golf course project hits familiar concerns

A Little Falls Village resident addresses his concerns with the development of the former Hercules Country Club to developer attorney Larry Tarabicos at a public meeting on Thursday.(Photo: XERXES WILSON/THE NEWS JOURNAL)Buy Photo

The math of calculating how many vehicles stream near the former Hercules Country Club off Lancaster Pike continues to complicate an effort to build 262 homes on the 205-acre property.

An attorney for landowner and Newport-based developer Greg Pettinaro briefed neighbors on the development plan for the property and an ongoing traffic study that will partially determine what sort of road improvements the developer must make to execute the project.

Traffic concerns and calculations have dogged a several-years-long effort to build houses on the property, and the county is fresh off spending tens of thousands of dollars successfully defending all the way to the Delaware Supreme Court its decision to block a previous development on the land over traffic issues.

That plan was being pushed by Toll Brothers, which was going to buy the land from Pettinaro. Now, Pettinaro's representatives have been conducting an updated traffic study as he seeks approval of a development plan that mirrors that previous effort.

"The traffic study is deeply flawed," said Tom Dewson, a community land use activist. "We are not missing 20 or 30 cars a day, folks. We are missing over 20,000 cars a day that are not reflected in the traffic study as it is scoped today."

Dewson's comments are a technical argument touching on more visceral neighbor concerns expressed in the auditorium of A.I. du Pont High School in Greenville Thursday night.

For decades, the golf course land housed Hercules Country Club. More recently, it was known as Delaware National Country Club, which closed in 2010. The land is bisected by Red Clay Creek and is bounded by Lancaster Pike to the north and Hercules Road to the west and sits among one of New Castle County's most prominent corporate office space corridors.

The scope of the ongoing traffic study understates traffic in the area by not considering approved expansions at AstraZeneca as well as the DuPont Co. Experimental Station on Del. 141, said Dewson, who was a figure in the successful fight to block a major development at Barley Mill Plaza that also ended up in the state's highest court over traffic debate.

He argues the traffic counts being used in the study are also flawed because it does not consider 1 million square feet of vacant office space in the region at complexes like DuPont's Chestnut Run Plaza and Barley Mill Plaza, which is also owned by Pettinaro.

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Rush-hour traffic flows last year along Lancaster Pike at Centerville Road, near the former Delaware National Country Club.(Photo: JENNIFER CORBETT/THE NEWS JOURNAL)

Larry Tarabicos, attorney for Pettinaro, said traffic studies have not historically considered vacant office space. Further, he said the approved, but unbuilt developments mentioned are not close enough to the project to be considered for the project.

"We have never gone that far in the history of doing traffic studies in New Castle County," Tarabicos said.

A county official at the meeting said local regulators are considering Dewson's objections.

It's a debate that will weigh heavily on what local highway intersection improvements Pettinaro must pay for in order to build the project. Toll Brothers objected to the county's requirement that it make pricey improvements to the intersection of Lancaster Pike and Centerville Road leading to the death of the company's development push.

"We know there will have to be improvements to that intersection and they will be expensive," Tarabicos said.

Other issues raised at Thursday's meeting include environmental concerns from both herbicides used on the golf course as well as commercial chemical development on a neighboring property that drains through the golf course.

Tarabicos said a plan is being developed on how to remediate any toxic remnants from the golf course operation. He said concerns about contamination from nearby chemical development are an issue for the neighboring property.

Residents of Little Falls Village, an age-restricted community encircled by the golf course, were most prominent at the meeting. They asked the developer to limit a portion of the proposed project neighboring their homes to more "mature" residents.

"If you put (unrestricted) family homes encircling us, you are going to change the way we live," said Jack Giles, a local real estate agent who lives in Little Falls Village. "What we are looking for is a little compassion here. ... We are owed that."

Tarabicos said Pettinaro plans to sell the approved development plots to builders and they will ultimately decide how the homes are marketed.

"The builders, the market will determine that," Tarabicos said. "We have work to do before we can consider that."

Thursday's meeting was the first of multiple public hearings on the project. The next will come when the plan is presented to the county's Planning Board. That is on track to happen in July, Tarabicos said.